


Borrow My Safety

by orphan_account



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dreamtale (Undertale), Angst, Dream being wholesome, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmare being angsty, Nightmare's POV, and wholesome, i needed this ignore me, pre-apple incident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 03:04:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20807492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Nightmare has been mourning as of late. Dream thinks it's time to return a favor.





	Borrow My Safety

**Author's Note:**

> oh look, not ALL of this is angst! enjoy this rare sight!  
some discord conversations turned into this. -w-

The sky growls at him, low and ominous. The rumble of the thunder courses through his every bone, and somehow it’s only then that he realizes how alone he is in his darkening world. Black clouds have taken over the clear, warm morning they had been greeted by earlier in the day, a cold breeze washing through the fields like the ebbing waves.

Nightmare watches the sky with intent, as if its forlorn darkness is the only thing his eyes are willing to see. He watches the flashes of light hidden between the thick clouds, listens to the rueful mourn of thunder, feels the frozen air bite and scratch at his feeble bones, and he moves not an inch from where he cowers in the embrace of the roots.

He wishes his mother was actually there. Right there, with him, not within the tree she had sworn to protect. That he could hear more from her than the bark of the tree creaking in response to his tired, breathless words. That he could melt in her warm embrace and stay there forever, shielded from the world that had wronged him — or perhaps from the world _he_ had wronged.

There is only one thing that is colder than the breeze’s unrelenting touch, and it’s not his broken, shattered, obliterated and perhaps nonexistent heart but the thin trail of blood still making its way down his temple. How long has he been fighting it off? He winces when his phalanges brush against the crack on the side of his skull, small and narrow but oozing red nevertheless.

He hadn’t meant to intrude on anyone’s yard. He’d just wanted to find Dream and tell him there were flowers growing at the base of the Tree of Feelings again, but there was nowhere he could go without passing by hundreds of deadly, frightened, hateful stares of people he had to sidestep. He’d wanted to take the risk. Dream would have wanted to know right away. They could have laughed together, watching the flowers and nothing more like they owned that world.

The shovel the old gardener had thrown at him the moment their eyes made contact seemed to have thought otherwise. He had probably deserved it for trespassing. It was his own fault for stepping where he should not, though he was certain that same man had given Dream more than a few flowers for helping him. He still kept those somewhere.

The storm rumbles on, creeping closer and threatening to spill waterfalls upon them, and Nightmare makes himself as small as possible, seeking the warmth of the bark behind him. Everyone is going back home, leaving not a soul around him, every sound that encircles him part of nature — but he does not want to stay awake and rejoice in the bliss of silence.

He would always stay awake every night, or whenever storms came crashing in. It was his routine, and the only one he had come to love and repeat. He would spend the hours pacing, climbing, looking for flowers, reading, writing and drawing, stargazing… It was the only time of the day that allowed him any comfort. Dream always left for so long.

It's not the same this time, however, and Nightmare doesn't know what to make of it. Even with the village empty and every light off, he no longer feels like he has the energy or the will to take half a step away from his mother. The quiet is no longer his comfort. It hadn’t been for too long now. The stillness rushes toward him. The silence deafens him.

There is an insufferable tightness in his chest, and he would have believed his ribs were trying to choke him had someone told him so. He just knew. He knew things were not right anymore. He could no longer go looking for Dream. He couldn’t keep him there, bothering him with his miserable need for company. He couldn’t go anywhere too far from the Tree of Feelings if he wanted to keep his life within his reach.

He could do nothing but curl into himself, to try and let the cold breeze take away his pain and his misery and his sorrow, to maybe, somehow, _somehow_, wake up in a better world where it was only him and his brother even for five measly minutes…

What is he so nervous and frightened and anxious about, anyway? Why couldn’t he stop shaking, and why wouldn’t his chest stop tightening until he believed he would explode where he sat? Dream would be back any time now. A soft drizzle settles in, and everyone decides to go home for the day. He would be back and he would be fine.

Or, he could… do something a little more sensible than having to stand him and his lonely tantrum, and stay somewhere the rain couldn’t reach him with its frozen touch. Dream had more reasons to be out there than to be with him. Those people needed a little helping hand every once in a while. He, however, is only useful there…

Alone…

As the rain picks up, and the sky roars… he is, and should be, alone…

His nonexistent heart pounds hard, then. Hard enough to wrench tears from his eyes, and along with the mischievous trail of blood on the side of his skull, he does nothing to stop their flow. He lets them roam free down his eyes onto the grass beneath him, its warmth gone as the falling water takes it away.

Ugly sobs fill his air, and not even the thunder can drown them out.

He’s _alone_…

…and there is also a warm, golden cloth on his shoulders as his tears defeat the last of his broken will.

He jolts, but he clings to the fabric anyway out of pure instinct, simply because it’s not something hard or sharp that could shatter every bone in his body — he doesn’t care who or what is behind him, and it only dawns on him that he has seen this cloth before when he actually bothers to look at it.

This _cape_.

“…Dream?” His sense of direction is sloppy as he looks over his shoulders in search of his brother, and then he falls on realization — that Dream is there and he is indeed back, and he knew he would be back and he should have been ready to greet him and would have happily showed him those flowers he loved so much but he instead is mourning and brooding and probably worrying him to no end as usual–

He chokes on his own words and falls silent in the pouring rain as Dream sits beside him, no words of his own to accompany, assuring the cape stays safely on his shoulders, draped over his back and ever so warm against the storm.

He can’t comprehend what is going on. All he knows is that his spinning mind has given him a break, that his own chest is allowing him to breathe the humid air once more, that he feels safer than he has ever been surrounded by protruding roots.

That his brother is smiling at him. It’s one of those smiles, one that only Dream can give, full of compassion and reassurance and one that makes him forget about the cold and the rain and even his wounds as he wraps the golden, precious cloth around himself, holds it close like the treasure it is.

“You need to be more careful,” Dream tells him, softly, and Nightmare knows he is there for nothing more than to be with him, to comfort him, to scare his loneliness away and never let it return to haunt him. He knows what his inner turmoil is like; he just doesn’t know why it’s there, and why it constantly barks at him.

As dazed and lost and grateful as Nightmare is, he doesn’t explain. He doesn’t, yet, even when the bleeding crack on his skull is soothed by a damp rag Dream had brought with him — probably been told to keep it by whoever he had helped, he could only assume.

Nightmare stops to wonder what he had ever done to deserve the brother he had, or the mother that, though not there, was always watching them, giving them her light, her love.

“Y-yeah, sorry… You know I’m…”

_An idiot._

_A monster._

_A disaster._

_Someone who doesn’t deserve your kindness._

“…a little clumsy.”

Dream giggles. It’s soft and understanding. It’s not how he laughs with people. It’s not how they used to laugh together. It’s bitter, Nightmare feels it. It’s also just there, for him. Dream always acts different with him, and with his mother. Always shows his brighter kindness, that Nightmare had never seen him give anyone else out there.

It’s the only time he feels like he matters to someone, and it puts a weight on him that he’s unsure he can carry.

It also makes him feel devoid of any load, and lets him fly free.

“Wh-why…” Nightmare can barely continue speaking, and even at gunpoint he would not be able to express why. “Why did you give me the cape?”

_It’s yours, _he wants to say, but he can’t and he doesn’t. _It’s yours, I don’t deserve it…_

Dream removes the rag to check on the crack, so small and thin but still there and still a cause for concern that Nightmare never wanted him to see in all its ugliness and fault. “Well… Someone told me it would protect me from everything.”

Nightmare looks at his brother just as his smile mellows into something more bittersweet, and he can’t help as he winces because that is entirely his fault, just like everything else. He is always worrying him, worrying him with lies he should not hear and believe. “You’ve been thinking too much. You’ve been… really quiet, lately. I didn’t want to see you upset. Especially today.”

Nightmare averts his gaze. He holds the cape tighter, and he has completely forgotten such thing as rain exists.

He doesn’t know what he had been moping over.

He can’t afford to care, because he matters to someone, because he can still shine in someone’s world even if it’s not his own, and because he has all the protection he needs.

Because his brother is there, and he’s always going to be.

“Right now,” Dream places a hand on his shoulder, and he barely knows why and barely has the time to know why, but tears start filling his eyes. This time, they do not grieve. They do not bawl with him and they do not threaten to drown him, and he lets them flow as they please, “you need this more than I do, okay?”

Nightmare doesn’t know if he had intended to say something or not. He just knows that the moment a smile betrays what he feels, he’s already pulled his brother into a tight embrace where tears fall free and gratitude flows without pause.

He doesn’t know why he deserves a brother like Dream, but he’s glad he’s the one thing he has.


End file.
